The Beauty in Devastation
by Big Bad Mama
Summary: The Doctor reflects on the life of Kathryn Janeway. (This does not follow the Voyager storyline for purposes outlined in the Author's Note.)


_Life_, as described by various people, can have many connotations. One may choose to define life in terms of plants. On the surface, they do not appear to be alive, yet they grow and adapt and evolve just the same. One may choose to define life in terms of animals. They follow their instincts; they eat and sleep and procreate. One may even choose to define life in terms of conscience or sentience – having a system of rights and wrongs, a moral compass, the ability to choose one's own actions.

The definition of life, according to a hologram, may not mean much. However, my own personal experiences have led me to believe that life, by any definition, is a journey. I do not see life as being defined by plants or animals or sentience. Life, as I see it, is simply two words: _Kathryn Janeway_.

_()()()()()()()()()()_

As _Voyager_'s Captain, she had a fierce dedication to her ship and her crew. To her, being Captain meant putting their needs ahead of her own, no matter the circumstance. There had been numerous occasions on which she would practically have to be forced to Sick Bay. Throughout our voyage, she had constantly suffered from malnourishment and acute sleep deprivation – two common ailments of severe stress.

_"Captain, if I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times. You need to stop forgoing meals! Your body won't be able to take the stress you put yourself under if you don't treat it right."_

_ "With all due respect, Doctor, I think I know what my body can handle."_

Of course, these ailments could be seen in any Star Fleet captain to some degree. I could only imagine that they must have been magnified tenfold in the case of the Captain. As the only member aboard _Voyager_ with no memories of Earth – excluding young Naomi Wildman – I had never felt the strong desire to return to the planet. In fact, it was Captain Janeway who had given me my first few glimpses into the feelings of the crew concerning the matter.

"_B'Elanna, in the matter of just a few seconds, the universe went and took the future right out of our hands. Nobody asked us, nobody consulted us – they just went out and changed our lives. You are not the only one suffering. We have all had to make sacrifices. You think of yourself as having the only problems, as being the only one who is disappointed. But just look around you and you will see lots of people just as disappointed as you are.__"_

For the Captain, getting the crew home wasn't simply a matter of duty. To her, it was a personal responsibility. As the one who had made the decision to destroy the Caretaker's array, she had often felt very guilt ridden over the issue. In the beginning, she had been able to rationalize. She once told me that she had a constant feeling of guilt, but that she knew she had to suppress it in order to lead the crew to the best of her abilities. I had asked her to find a healthy outlet to relieve this guilt, but I had not been surprised when she had claimed to have no need for such an outlet.

As I had expected, this guilty feeling within her had built up over the course of the journey. As more and more crewmen died, the Captain began to take it harder and harder. Every death was a personal offense. Every misstep became a mistake on her behalf. Every time a part of the ship was shot and needed to be replaced, it seemed as if a little part of her needed to be replaced as well. She began to lose faith in her abilities and confidence in her decisions.

Once, after a particularly nasty encounter with the Kazon, the Captain had been sent to Sick Bay for a minor injury. Commander Chakotay had joined her shortly after, and while I hadn't intended to eavesdrop, it had been impossible to resist.

_"Kathryn, what happened out there?"_

_ She didn't look him in the eyes – she couldn't. Her voice was barely a whisper, but the magnitude of her words was not lessened. "I gave up."_

_ "Gave up? Kathryn, you can't just give up."_

_ She smiled a sort of sad, funny smile. It was as if she knew something that everybody else didn't, something she had tried to suppress. "Things have a way of turning out so badly. We're out here, trying to seem bigger than life, and what does life do? It knocks us down. We are nothing but glass, Chakotay, and glass breaks so easily. No matter how careful you are." _

As time passed, she seemed to wither. She withdrew into herself. She was rarely seen by the crew and she rarely opted to explore new spatial anomalies. She bore little resemblance to the Kathryn Janeway who had started the journey. She was defeated.

This had gone on for months. There was nary a soul who dared to utter a word to the Captain – that is, except for the Commander. I remember the occasion where he had asked me if there was anything I could do medically to bring the Captain out of her depression.

"_I surely don't know the Captain as well as you, Commander. However, I can tell you something that we both know about her. Captain Janeway is only human. She has been ignoring this since day one, and she is just now coming to terms with it. I've done as much as I can – she doesn't come to Sick Bay; she doesn't eat; she doesn't sleep. I don't know what else I can suggest… medically." _

_He paused for a moment. "But off the record, Doctor?"_

_I sighed. "Look, Commander. I don't know very much about being human. However, I do know a great deal about human nature. It seems… Well, put simply, it seems as if Captain Janeway needs something good to happen. A human being cannot thrive positively in a negative environment." I paused before saying the last part. "It seems the Captain has lost sight of something to look forward to."_

It was only a few days later that I had heard the results of my talk with the Commander. It fact, the news had come from Lieutenants Paris and Torres during a routine pregnancy checkup examination.

"_Trust me, Tom, I know. It's still shocking, though."_

"_It's not like it was unexpected," Tom said. "We all knew it was bound to happen eventually."_

"_I'll say! Ever since they got stranded on that planet, she's been the only thing on his mind. It's just nice to see that she's finally giving him a chance. Giving herself a chance." _

Although I hadn't taken part in Tom Paris' betting pool involving getting the commanding officers together, I recall being pleasantly surprised to hear the news nonetheless. I wouldn't have thought romance to be the solution to the Captain's ails, but it could certainly provide her with a source of comfort and relaxation – which, in time, it did. A few weeks later, the Captain began to emerge from her depression. She once again began to explore the nooks and crannies of the galaxy with the observant eye of the scientists within her. Things began to return to normal – in fact, they were even better than normal. The Captain's stress decreased phenomenally. She ate better and even got a full eight hours of sleep most nights. Things were the best they had ever been.

That is, until Chakotay and B'Elanna were killed on an away mission.

It hadn't been long after that the Captain had fallen back into her depression. She had managed for a week or so before she had become victim of a vicious rant from Tom Paris. He had been so out of control that it had been necessary to sedate him.

The very next day, the Captain made her way to the holodeck. She spent weeks programming an alternate _Voyager_ in which the Commander and Lieutenant Torres were still alive. She had even programmed all of the other deceased crewmen into her fantasy.

For months, the Captain locked herself in the holodeck. I often took the place of my holographic counterpart to check on her progress. I had hoped to find an opening from which I would pry her back into reality. However, the Captain's state of mind was simply too fragile to break. She could not be forced into the real world. She was lost – trapped – in figments of her own imagination.

That left Tuvok in command of _Voyager_ for nearly a year. The crew became depressed. The loss of the Commander and Lieutenant Torres had been a great deal to handle. The mental instability of Tom Paris? The seemingly permanent loss of the Captain? The crew was hanging over the edge of a cliff with only one thread of rope left to keep them all from falling.

That was why I had been rather surprised when I had been activated one morning only to find the Captain in Sick Bay. She had been sitting on a biobed with an unusually blank stare.

"_Doctor… I don't know what to do." She looked up at me. "I don't understand. Everything goes wrong – one thing after the next. Every time a small glimmer of hope shines through the cracks, it's brutally ripped away. Sometimes it's like a I can see the future stretched out in front of me – just as plain as day. The future, Doctor. Hanging over there, at the edge of my days. Just waiting for me – a big, looming blank space – full of nothing. Just waiting for me." She looked back down at the floor._

"_It doesn't have to be." I rested a hand on her shoulder._

_She looked at me with the same sad, funny smile that she had looked at the Commander with so long ago. "We're all dead on the inside. All the talk that of dreams of getting home? It's all gone – and we're all dead." She paused and then added softly, "Ou sont les nieges d'antan?"_

Even now, thinking back on those words, I am unable to get them out of my mind. Where are the snows of yesteryear? Why are things forever changing? Why can't anything stay as it is?

I carefully place a small bouquet in front of the tombstone. The inscription reads:

_In loving memory of Captain Kathryn E. Janeway_

_She was an outstanding officer and an outstanding woman._

_May she find peace in what lies ahead of her._

I can't help but think that there should be so much more written than there is. There should be something about her accomplishment as a Star Fleet Officer. There should be something about her time on _Voyager_. It should say that she went out fighting.

It should say that life never agreed to a fair fight.

It should say that she never stood a chance in the first place.

**Author's Note:**

This is loosely based off of Lorraine Hansberry's _A Raisin in the Sun_ and Tennessee Williams' _The Glass Menagerie_. This doubles as a piece of "creative writing" I had to do for a summer assignment. I would like to thank Aunt Kathy for taking to time to beta this story for me! I am very grateful.

**-BBM**


End file.
